The Cochrane Curling Club hosted a very successful Men’s Bonspiel with happy competitors and teams that took part.

The Cochrane Curling Club Men’s 2018 Bonspiel ran Jan. 26-28 at the new curling facility located at the Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Centre.

It was a weekend of great competition and once again the teams that competed at the arena were quite pleased with how nice the facility is and how great the ice was. Teams were able to enjoy the great facility, but it was even sweeter for those who won.

Here were the winners: the A event winner was the Warren Ferguson rink from Calgary, the B event winner was the Derek Lylyk rink from Calgary, the C event winner was the Taylor Kimmett rink from Cochrane, and the D event winner was the Doug Campbell rink from Cochrane.

“I think the weekend was a big success,” said organizer of the event, Ken Weisner.

“I received so many positive comments about how great the ice was, especially from people who have played on it for the first time. Also had comments on people having a great time and enjoying the weekend.”

“The final A match was very close and back and forth with some great shots being made. All the final events actually had great matchups and lots of great shots were made.”

In the C final, Cochrane family members battled against each other in a father-son matchup. The sons’ won the matchup as Team Taylor Kimmett won.

“That was definitely quite interesting and fun to watch,” said Weisner.

One of these positive comments came from the team that lost in the A finals and will be competing at provincials and they said that this ice will be as good or better than the one they will be playing at in provincials. This brings the question on if Cochrane will be the site of much bigger curling events in the future, and it definitely looks most likely.

“I think we will have teams from Calgary interested to come and curl and practice at our arena in the near future,” said Weisner.

National teams from other countries have also inquired about using the new facility. Spray Lakes has the whole package, as there is a dry land training facility, food and other activities.

Upcoming events for the Cochrane Curling Club include: the Sturling Spiel - a one day event on Feb. 17th and the Ladies Spiel Feb 23-25th. The final bond pile of the year will be the Mixed Spiel on Mar. 23-25th.